


Pass

by aptasi



Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Backstory, Dark, Dissociative state, Drama, Extended Scene, F/M, Grand Gesture, Headcanon, Letters, Loss of family members, PTSD, Relationship in Development, Romance, Self-Doubt, Support, Trauma, War, anticipated trauma, chosen family, family trauma, genocicde, physcological, relationship under stress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28471176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aptasi/pseuds/aptasi
Summary: Moiraine also received a message at Jangai Pass, from Thom.
Relationships: Moiraine Damodred/Thom Merrilin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	Pass

**Author's Note:**

> Rating is for…the canonical Jangai Pass scene mostly, and some additional trauma references and gore. Additionally this involves intense mental dissociation. Know yourself. Mind the tags. 
> 
> The kernel of the idea for this story was inspired by This Is How You Lose The Time War.

Jumping down to assist these people was an error.

Trying to help the woman by healing her was a mistake likewise. No one could heal watching that happen to one’s family. Not if one actually cared about them at least. Moiraine had not cared during the last Aiel war, at least not about her family. She did now. 

The Aes Sedai told herself not to look at the walls, to keep their ‘decoration’ abstract. The less she recognized, the better her chance of keeping her composure. The more she reacted, the more the Aiel would see her as a Treekiller rather than Aes Sedai, and her access to The Dragon Reborn could hang on this distinction. Already he was bored even with her obedience. She had seen his mind wandering as they rode up, shrugging her off as if she were lecturing him about eating too many sweets, as though he could not even hear her begging for the lives of what had once been her people, and behind it the lives of the whole world. 

If only Jangai Pass were her greatest nightmare. If only she could afford to let her fear here matter. 

That woman, Aril, reminded Moiraine of… no one reminded her of no one. The Aes Sedai had to impel the correction through her thoughts, but it got there. Her mind was used to force, after a fashion. It would have to be soon. 

“He chose them out to hang, just pulling them out until he had enough to line the wall.” One of the others was saying. 

Distantly the thought came to Moiraine that there was some strange symbolic structure in it. That was just the kind of thing one of her uncles would have done. 

The Aes Sedai reminded herself not to look up. 

She knew what was up there. She had seen it already. She did not need to see it again. 

As the Aes Sedai she was and could not help being, Moiraine kept her composure as the screaming happened, mostly, though she wanted to do anything else. Her face did not move when Rhuarc shrugged, said “only treekillers,” even though Moiraine’s emotions were fast distilling into some kind of rage, one that would have to be directed at herself or Lan later, since she could not let fly on any true target. It would be at herself, she decided. Lan did not deserve it. She hoped she had the willpower to enforce that decision. 

Do not look at the walls, the Aes Sedai ordered herself. Do not look up. Or down. Or at anyone's face. Or away as though afraid. She needed to keep her eyes towards Rand. Look at decisions. not results. 

It was only once the conditions for making camp were set that Lan came back to her side. Self indulgently, Moiraine whispered a name to her Warder, keeping her eyes on Rand. "Find out about my informant."

In the time it took Lan to melt away and ask her question, Moiraine managed to only look up at the walls twice. The first time she saw flesh being lowered, bursting, white maggots pouring out. The second time she was well aware that she was torturing herself on purpose. She was about to look up a third time, to make a point to Rand who seemed to be watching her, she told herself, when Lan came back to her side. 

“Gone.” 

The Aes Sedai exhaled. “May the Creator shelter her soul until she is born again.” She recited tonelessly. 

“Not dead. Gone. Someone came by three weeks ago, and paid her and her entire household an exorbitant amount of money to be retainers in a household in Andor.” 

Moiraine glanced at Rand. His attention seemed to be elsewhere.

“Andor?” She asked Lan.

“They were gone before the Aiel arrived here.” Lan said. “I found this in what was apparently once her house.” He handed her an envelope, blue. 

Upon opening it, Moiraine found it contained only a blank piece of parchment, between insulating sheets that hadn't allowed heat to pass. She turned the paper once, twice, in her hands and then channeled heat away from it. Unless she missed her guess an attempt to read this by heating it would obliterate the ink. 

Sure enough as the paper started to crackle with cold, a familiar hand appeared. 

_My Dear Blue_

_If you're reading this I had a lucky guess_  
_Glad I read you and our flutist right_

__

Grey

Keeping her face still, she let the paper warm. The black ink faded out and grey appeared. 

__

_P.s. I am still furious, but not so much as to avoid spending half of last night trying to find a code for 'this is sincerely not a threat'_

Thom Merrilin suspected, likely from his interaction with Rand in Tear, a second Aiel War. The man was extraordinarily competent. If she were not on the verge of vomiting from horror and guilt, Moiraine would find that rather attractive. Not that she could afford to make that relevant at the moment. 

More puzzling, Thom Merrilin's reaction to his somehow acquired knowledge was to save one of her eyes and ears. Well not just that. It took effort to let go of the distance that kept her from feeling what she was thinking, but Moiraine did this time. She would not be able to analyze this absent the factor of her own self. 

This was not just from the home of one of her eyes and ears, but of her first dancing instructor, who had taught her her first court steps, how to feel joy in the movement but show none of it unless she wished. 

Later, Madame had survived the first Aiel war by the happenstance of travel for her second pregnancy, and had later retired to Jangai Pass, her ancestral home, to raise her family. Moiraine had made use of her as an informant, as much for an excuse to communicate with her as for any relevance of the information. 

This woman had been like her mother, back when she thought it was possible for someone to be something like that to someone like her. 

And Thom Merrillin had somehow known what this person meant to Moiraine and, lucky guess or not, had someone take her with her family out of the neighborhood of Jangai pass. 

The Aes Sedai would deal with the possibility that this woman was a hostage later. Even if that were the case Thom Merrilin was reasonably ethical and that was probably safer than the alternative. 

No. It was necessary to be brutally honest with herself. Moiraine knew perfectly well that Thom Merrilin... Thom was being honest. He had not saved her informant... saved Madame for leverage but to spare Moiraine pain. 

Briefly, Moiraine indulged herself in a feeling that like Saidar she knew she could not allow herself to like too much or be fond of too deeply. For a moment Moiraine was in the few of her memories where she survived the land beyond the redstone arch, coming out of sensate paralysis with Thom's arms around her body. The permutations had let her have that one searing hope, even though Thom was furious at her. 

She felt a following surge of intensely painful shame remembering why he was furious at her. 

It truly was a mercy the memories fade. The revelation that the difference between life and eternal torture, once the necessary sacrifice was made, might come down to whether Moiraine was _loved_ … she who at every turn must make herself so distant, so despisable, who could number the counterexamples to the axiom that she was unlovable on one hand, with most of her fingers left over. 

The knowledge that Thom had in all likelihood saved the life of one of those vanishingly rare examples...

Too far. If she kept on like this she would either break composure in front of these people or set Lan into a fit of worry. Or both. 

The Aes Sedai put her face back on. 

"The wheel weaves as the wheel wills." she muttered, though it was not the wheel's will she was worried about.

As she went to put the letter in her pocket the ink changed color once more. 

_I am actually anxious to make a good impression on her, should we ever meet. Perhaps you might put in a good word for me? I miss you, you infuriating woman._

She did not let herself think about the last line. Easier to contemplate the first two. Thom Merrilin trying to charm Madame of all people. Perhaps the two of them could bond over their extensive opinions on early age composition. She had best hope they agreed on some of the fine points or someone might be assassinated over it. The notion was so frivolous and so warmly absurd that it helped Moiraine put herself back together, face out into her burning homeland and endure. 

There was so little to hold onto any more, that, though she knew it was aiming her at a fall, part of Moiraine could not resist gripping this messy hope like last air. 

Which it very well might be. It was time to check on the wagons again.


End file.
